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284 INTRODUCTION TO COPYRIGHT: THEORY & HISTORY
any rightholder. Instead, the works simply lapse into the public domain.
See, e.g., Berne, Art. 18(1), 828 U.N.T.S., at 251 (“This Convention shall
apply to all works which . . . have not yet fallen into the public domain.
. . .”). Anyone has free access to the public domain, but no one, after
the copyright term has expired, acquires ownership rights in the onceprotected
works.
Would Hugo agree?
Samuel L. Clemens [Mark Twain], Statement before
the Committee of Patents of the Senate and House
to discuss amending the Copyright Act
June 1906
Mr. Clemens. I have read the bill. At least I have read such portions of it as I could
understand; and indeed I think no one but a practiced legislator can read the bill and
thoroughly understand it, and I am not a practiced legislator. I have had no practice at all
in unraveling confused propositions or bills. Not that this is more confused than any other
bill. I suppose they are all confused. It is natural that they should be, in a legal paper of
that kind, as I understand it. Nobody can understand a legal paper, merely on account of
the language that is in it. It is on account of the language that is in it that no one can
understand it except an expert.
Necessarily I am interested particularly and especially in the part of the bill which
concerns my trade. I like that bill, and I like that extension from the present limit of
copyright life of forty-two years to the author’s life and fifty years after. I think that will
satisfy any reasonable author, because it will take care of his children. Let the grandchildren
take care of themselves. “Sufficient unto the day.” That would satisfy me very well. That
would take care of my daughters, and after that I am not particular. I shall then long have
been out of this struggle and independent of it. Indeed, I like the whole bill. It is not
objectionable to me. Like all the trades and occupations of the United States, ours is
represented and protected in that bill. I like it. I want them to be represented and protected
and encouraged. They are all worthy, all important, and if we can take them under our wing
by copyright, I would like to see it done. I should like to have you encourage oyster culture
and anything else. I have no illiberal feeling toward the bill. I like it. I think it is just. I think
it is righteous, and I hope it will pass without reduction or amendment of any kind.
I understand, I am aware, that copyright must have a term, must have a limit, because
that is required by the Constitution of the United States, which sets aside the earlier
constitution, which we call the Decalogue. The Decalogue says that you shall not take away
from any man his property. I do not like to use the harsher term, “Thou shalt not steal.”
But the laws of England and America do take away property from the owner. They
select out the people who create the literature of the land. Always talk handsomely about
the literature of the land. Always say what a fine, a great monumental thing a great
literature is. In the midst of their enthusiasm they turn around and do what they can to
crush it, discourage it, and put it out of existence. I know that we must have that limit.
But forty-two years is too much of a limit. I do not know why there should be a limit at
all. I am quite unable to guess why there should be a limit to the possession of the product